With 1.8 billion people threatened by absolute water scarcity by 2025, and two-thirds of the world’s population facing potential shortages, countries must better protect and manage forests to ensure the provision of clean water to vulnerable communities, a United Nations-backed forum warned today. “Forests are part of the natural infrastructure of any country and are essential to the water cycle,” said UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Forestry Department Assistant Director...

Rita Sharma, Secretary of India's National Advisory Council (NAC), has been appointed to a new commission on climate change to be chaired by Britain's chief scientific adviser Sir John Beddington. The new Commission on Sustainable Agriculture and Climate Change, has been set up by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research's Research Programme on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security program (CCAFS). Sharma is among 13 members of the commission which, in...

The GoM to determine the norms for coalmine clearance in reserve forests, largely in tribal areas, and the parallel exercise to give back forest lands to tribals is not about the environment, but about forest policy. The divergence of interests between national use of forests, ecological balance and needs of local people should be recognised. However, the tribal affairs ministry is responsible for the Forest Rights Act and the coal...

Poor allocation of funds to key social sectors shows the government’s lacklustre approach to inclusive growth. We are reaching the end of a remarkable fiscal year,” said the finance minister as he rose to present the Union Budget 2011-12. Agreeing with the government that the year gone by presented us with several opportunities and challenges to address critical concerns pertaining to the social sector, the overall sense is that this Budget,...

A growing number of endangered olive ridley sea turtles have been getting killed in Eastern India’s coastal state Orissa by mechanized vessels defying a fishing ban on one of the world’s largest turtle sanctuaries, Gahirmatha. While the government said "no more than 800" were killed since November last year, environmentalists counter that the casualty count of these tiny turtles is actually 5,000. The problem illustrates the situation that confronts Orissa and other...